Alexander’s parents tell the story of their son and are making an urgent appeal in the hope of raising the funds to pay for his life saving proton treatment in America.
« In November 2012, Alexander complained of feeling unwell. As he stood up he lost the power in his left arm and leg and collapsed. Alexander was rushed to the hospital where they performed an MRI scan which showed lesions in the cerebellum. After a number of surgical interventions, were given the devastating news that Alexander had a stage 4 brain tumour. Diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a type of malignant brain tumour and life limiting condition, we were also told that the tumour had broken up and travelled down his spine. The outlook was very bleak. The plan was to start an aggressive chemotherapeutic approach followed by radiotherapy and then more chemotherapy.
In March 2013 Alexander had an MRI scan to see how well the cancer had responded to the induction chemotherapy. Before the positive results of the MRI scan were known, Alexander’s oncologist at the John Radcliffe explored the option of proton radiotherapy abroad. Proton treatment is a much kinder and less harmful to the body especially that of a young child. It creates little to no collateral damage to other organs, good tissue and bone structure compared to traditional radiotherapy. He contacted a number of facilities, but due to the treatment time frame, and the waiting list for the machines, extensive spread of the cancer we were told that they would not accept him for treatment and we would have to undergo traditional radiotherapy here in the UK.
Not to be deterred, we contacted The Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA and quickly arranged for his case history and latest scans to be reviewed, hoping that in their opinion Alexander would be a good candidate for proton and whether they could treat him in the very near future.
On Friday 29th March 2013 we got the fantastic news that The Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston would be happy to accept Alexander for proton radiotherapy treatment due to his response to the chemotherapy -with every chance of a cure. Boston miraculously has an opening at the end of April beginning of May for Alexander.
We are now making an urgent appeal in the hope of raising the funds to pay for his life saving proton treatment in America. Our goal is to reach £255,000 in the next 2 weeks to cover the cost of treatment. We know it’s a tall order but hope and pray that with your help, we can make this happen. »
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